The Natural Way of Things (Paperback)

Staff Reviews

Two young women wake up in strange clothes, locked in a unfamiliar room in the middle of the Outback. As they struggle to understand not only where they are, but what they now are, a bond forms that abuse and neglect cannot break. The Natural Way of Things is a brutal allegorical novel about the way society judges and vilifies women for their bodies and the horrific crimes enacted on female bodies. The writing is savage and anyone that feels frustration over the treatment of women today will relish this tale of unjust punishment and ultimately, feminist revenge. — From Camilla's Picks (page 1)

Description

"A Handmaid's Tale for the 21st century" (Prism Magazine), Wood's dystopian tale about a group of young women held prisoner in the Australian desert is a prescient feminist fable for our times. As the Guardian writes, "contemporary feminism may have found its masterpiece of horror."

Drugged, dressed in old-fashioned rags, and fiending for a cigarette, Yolanda wakes up in a barren room. Verla, a young woman who seems vaguely familiar, sits nearby. Down a hallway echoing loudly with the voices of mysterious men, in a stark compound deep in the Australian outback, other captive women are just coming to. Starved, sedated, the girls can't be sure of anything--except the painful episodes in their pasts that link them.

Drawing strength from the animal instincts they're forced to rely on, the women go from hunted to hunters, along the way becoming unforgettable and boldly original literary heroines that readers will both relate to and root for.

The Natural Way of Things is a lucid and illusory fable and a brilliantly plotted novel of ideas that reminds us of mankind's own vast contradictions--the capacity for savagery, selfishness, resilience, and redemption all contained by a single, vulnerable body.

About the Author

Charlotte Wood is the author of five novels and one book of non-fiction. She has been described as one of Australia's "most original and provocative writers." Her novels have been shortlisted for many prizes, including the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and the regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize.